


Cup Day

by Quite an Irregular Thing (Purna)



Series: Family Skate [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Las Vegas Aces, M/M, Multi, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purna/pseuds/Quite%20an%20Irregular%20Thing
Summary: Eddie never expected to win a Cup.





	Cup Day

**A/N: Full content warning in endnotes, please read if you have concerns.**

 

Eddie never expected to win a Cup. Cups are for the talented, for the elite products of Canada and Europe who play on established NHL teams. Cups aren’t for American undrafted NCAA players, cheaply signed out of free agency for the AHL trenches. Cups aren’t for journeymen players given away in expansion drafts once they finally make the Show.  

Cups aren’t for upstart hockey franchises in the middle of the desert, for a team kludged together out of other GM’s castoffs. Cups aren’t for the team that didn’t get its Zimmermann.

But Vegas is all about long odds and the crazy dreams of beating them, and yeah. They win the Cup.

They play the toughest hockey Eddie’s ever played in his life, but they survive. The final series against Philly stretches out to seven close games, including a brutal double OT loss in game four that literally drives them all to tears. It’s a grueling marathon that comes down to a last minute Cup-winning goal in the final regulation seconds of game seven. Kent “you fucking beauty” Parson breaks the tie with a breakaway goal at 11 seconds before the buzzer.

And the crowd goes wild. Eddie’s pretty sure that’s what happens anyway. Things get awfully blurry after that, like he’s having an out of body experience or something.

*

When they get back to Vegas, they get a fucking parade. Las Vegas will never be a hockey town like Boston or Toronto, but it sure as hell knows how to party and everybody loves a winner. There are showgirls and gymnasts and the UNLV marching band positioned along the parade route; it’s endearing and a little trashy and perfectly Las Vegas.

Eddie hopes that the Aces’ peewee team, who’s riding a truck somewhere behind him, isn’t scarred for life. He thinks they’ll be okay: they’re resilient and weird enough to fall in love with desert hockey, to play a sport almost universally foreign to them when the Aces first came to town.

The crowds lining the parade route are a mix of hockey fans, a bunch with kids in tow, and drunk tourists. The team’s loving it though, taking advantage of the periodic stops to work the crowd, signing autographs and handing out t-shirts and then doing shots with college kids.

Paulie’s had his phone out since the start, looping his arm over Eddie’s shoulders to take goofy selfies. The next time the parade slows to a crawl, Paulie drags him off the truck to kiss babies and take selfies with fans.

“My wife and I have twins, too,” Paulie says to a mom with a double stroller, who’s wearing one of Kent’s fan club tank tops. The front shows the number 90 embellished with black devil horns and tail, under the words _Wicked Wrister_ in looping font. Eddie hopes she’s not disappointed that she’s getting one of the team’s workhorse defensive pairs instead of their star player.

Paulie gently high-fives the babies in the stroller, then pulls out a sharpie to autograph shirts for them all.

“Thanks for coming out to see us,” he says to the mom, but keeps looking at the babies with a huge grin on his face. He’s got his tooth in for once, and the filled gap in his smile looks kind of weird. He starts to make funny faces, and one of the babies laughs. It sets off the other to laugh with her, happy and gurgling.

Eddie ignores the ache in his chest and crowds in beside Paulie to tickle a round baby belly. “Girls are the best, huh,” Paulie says, nudging an elbow into Eddie’s side without looking over. He sounds dopey and paternal, flushed all pretty in the bright sun, and the mom fucking melts.

Eddie does too.

*

In dreams, he remembers. He remembers being dead tired, the noise and the white of the ice, the funky stench of gear and spilled Gatorade. He remembers spilling out onto the ice, being crushed in a sweaty pileup of Paulie and Butchie and JoJo, and then the whole team, everyone yelling and crashing into each other, wild-eyed and a little bloody.

At the center of it all is Kent, too small and valuable for this kind of unrestrained fucking around, but the kid’s basking in it, beaming.

Kent’s shaking so hard he almost drops the Cup when Booker hands it to him, but he skates off looking solid. The crowd goes crazy as Kent does his lap, his eyes wild and dark in a face that’s pale as the ice.

“Who’s my boy?” Paulie yells, when he finally hands it Eddie. They take a minute to lift it together, and they both kiss its silver surface.

Later, JoJo retweets a photograph of the moment: Paulie’s face close to Eddie’s, their playoff-bearded mouths pressed to cold metal. JoJo captions it, “The best kind of threesome!” with a bunch of eggplant and fireworks emojis and gets in trouble with PR. Eddie kind of wants to print it out and frame it.

*

After the win, there’s a huge party at Eddie and Nicki’s house. Cup parties and apocalyptic levels of destruction go hand in hand, and Nicki’s not thrilled about that side of things, Eddie can tell. Eddie’s not so hot on it, either.

But Kent lives with them, and well, Kent really wants a party.

He doesn’t ask for it, he’s never asked for much of anything, not as long as he’s lived with them. They’ve had to learn to read him, to listen to what he doesn’t say, how he talks around the things he really wants. He wants to be a host, wants his team celebrating in his space. Nicki’s eyes find Eddie’s, wordless agreement in a glance, old marrieds that they are, and then she just announces it, like a foregone conclusion.

It’s Kent fucking Parson. They’re both pretty gone on the kid.

The party’s mood is electric, no matter that the team’s mostly walking wounded. They’re pretty much shredded from the long playoff run, burned too lean and nursing injuries. Paulie played game seven of the final with two broken fingers, Kent’s already started PT for a knee sprain, and Eddie might be looking at shoulder surgery over the summer, but he’ll worry about all that shit later. Right now he’s flying high, giddy with celebration. They all are.

Eddie’s drunk enough that he winds up kissing most of the team, sloppy and jokey, except for the one he lays on Paulie. That one ends up not jokey at all. Eddie doesn’t know how it goes there, not in front of the team like they are, but it ends up…sweet, and he wonders if Paulie’s going to chirp him about it.

Sure enough, there are plenty of catcalls from the team, but Paulie doesn’t say anything. They’re solid together, it’s been like that basically since they first met. They’ve always been easy with each other.

Paulie’s hanging off him like a monkey, arm looped around Eddie’s neck. “It still doesn’t feel real, Gonz,” Paulie says, warm breath right in Eddie’s ear. He sounds drunk, except that Eddie knows better.

“Break it up, you homos,” someone says cheerfully, and smacks them both on the ass.

“Fuck off, JoJo,” Paulie says, but he pulls away. Eddie sighs and mopes around until he finds Nicki, and they fool around a little bit in the kitchen.

“You look great,” he says finally, pulling back to give Nicki what feels like a goofy grin. She’s wearing his jersey over black leggings and is smoking the casual look. The jersey’s oversized on her, collar too large, and it’s dipping down to expose a hint of her collarbone. He can’t resist leaning in to lick the smooth skin there, making her do the snort-squeal sound that she denies whenever he tries to call her on it.

“Stop that,” Nicki says, but she’s smiling back at him. “I probably taste like lotion.” She sounds a little distracted when she says that, looking past Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie turns to see Kent, who’s helping one of his linemates carry in Costco-sized boxes of liquor.

*

Late the next day, Eddie and Kent are nursing their hangovers and having breakfast in the kitchen. They’re lazily tossing around the idea of sweating out the pain in the gym, but they’re not at all serious about it. Eddie’s not, anyway, he’s too old for that shit. He’s grumbling about getting the place cleaned up a little before Nicki comes back home, when Kent corners him.

Kent takes a breath and glares at him, straight in the eye, and says, “So what's Paulie's fucking deal?”

The silence stretches as Eddie blinks down at his eggs. He’s not nearly coherent enough for this conversation. He puts on his best D-man shut down glare, but Kent presses his advantage. He’s a natural at that kind of thing on the ice, slicing his way through a crowd like a hot knife through butter.

“Does he not like hanging out with us?” Kent’s frowning, his mouth a tense line. “At first I told myself it was the new dad thing, but it’s not just that, is it?”

“Kent,” Eddie says slowly, but can’t think of anything to say after that.

“Or is it just me?” Kent’s staring down at his coffee, not meeting Eddie’s eyes. “I know the _rookie savior_ shit gets old. You guys had your thing, and suddenly everything was about this one stupid kid. And then Brousseau kept writing about me, saying I was toxic and stuff, and then that thing with Booker.”

*

The thing with Booker went down like this.

The Aces are Stanley Cup Champions, and Booker gets the Conn Smythe for being the best damn captain ever to captain. Afterwards, there’s lots of internet grumbling that it was all sympathy vote, a retirement present to ease an old man out the door. They say it was stolen from Kent, that Booker lucked into his first and last Cup at age 38 by riding Kent’s coattails.

Never mind that they couldn’t have done it without Booker. Even with Kent’s generational talent on their side, they’d been punching above their weight class from the start, had barely scraped their way into the playoffs. Booker’s grit and determination got them through the postseason, held them together game after game, series after series.

Booker laughs off all the nasty shit written about him, but Kent kind of loses it. He goes on an epic twitter rant, all outrage and venom to shut the naysayers down hard.

*

“Brousseau’s an idiot,” Eddie says automatically, then, “Paulie likes you. The team likes you. Jesus, Kent.”

Eddie’s floored. This is not what Kent Parson, Cup champion and genuine savior of the Aces, is expected to worry about. Eddie remembers being terrified back then, trying to make the Show, the seasons he spent bouncing between California and Alberta. But Eddie’d been an unflashy D1 player who’d barely scraped his way into an AHL try-out. Eddie’s own sense of uncertainty and lack of belonging was fully deserved, but he’d never pegged Kent for that kind of thinking.

Kent nods, but his expression stays taut, focused. It’s kind of intimidating, Eddie has to admit. Kent looks down for a moment. When he looks back up, he seems thoughtful, a little troubled.  

“It’s not--” he says, but cuts himself off. He’s looking at Eddie like someone who’s got the puck but is trapped in a crowd. Like he really needs a pass and wants Eddie to just get what he’s asking without actually saying anything. Only Eddie doesn’t understand.

“Not what?” Eddie says.

“That he thinks I don’t know, and he’s trying to hide it,” Kent says.

_Oh, shit,_ Eddie thinks. “Hide what?” he says carefully.

Kent narrows his eyes at him, and then he says, enunciating very slowly, like he thinks Eddie’s being stupid, “I know, all right? The hooking up. You and him.”

*

After the Booker thing, Kent’s twitter rant gets retweeted a million times. It lights up hockey twitter and the story ends up hitting the regular sports media.

Anita in PR sighs at him in private, but doesn’t make him delete the tweets. She releases a weirdly moving official statement regarding what it means to be “most valuable” in a team effort. She writes about good captains versus great captains, and lists the many ways Johann Buk is one of the greats. Potent stuff and it somehow manages to convey the air of a long-suffering parent, _I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed_.

It’s kind of a masterpiece of shaming, Eddie thinks, reading it on his phone in bed. Nicki’s sprawled on her stomach beside him, naked and warm and smiling, because celebration sex is awesome. He’s absently stroking his fingers up and down her spine, and she’s practically purring.

Eddie re-reads the paragraph where Anita namedrops Armstrong and Stevens and Bourque, great captains who protected their teammates from first to last. It’s hockey kryptonite, in defense of both Booker and Kent, and Eddie smiles. He really didn’t want Kent getting into trouble, not for standing up for Booker like that. Kent loves his team, they all know it, just like they know he’ll be wearing an A at the very least next season, young as he is.

His phone vibrates with a text. It’s a link to the article from JoJo, who sent it out to the whole team. It reads, _Mom likes u best old man,_ with the thumbs up and kissy face emojis, and Eddie laughs.

*

Back in Alberta, when their baby dreams crashed and burned, Eddie was sad, of course he was. He wanted kids too, but he saw how it chewed Nicki up and spat her out bleeding, and it never really hit him like that.

Then Paulie and Jules had kids. Eddie held his best friends’ daughters in his arms, and it was just too much. Like everything seized inside his chest, so much feeling it was trying to get out, and it hurt, pain and joy smashed together. The babies had weird squashed red faces, and everything smelled like hospital, and there it was, all of a sudden, bolt out of the blue.

He wonders how oblivious he’d been back then, wonders if he’d been understanding or kind enough with Nicki. When he finally got up the nerve to ask Nicki about it, she didn’t say anything at first.

 “Oh, baby,” she said finally, in a quiet, distant sort of voice. “The doctors were fucking kind. I needed someone with me, right in the middle of that sea of hurt. That was you.”

*

_The hooking up. You and him_ , Kent said, and it’s funny how Kent’s sort of right and wrong at the same time.

Paulie _is_ hiding something, and Eddie and Paulie _do_ have a thing. But those two things aren’t as neatly tied together as Kent seems to think, and it’s probably not the kind of thing that Kent’s imagining.

Either-or, black-white, people always want to think that way, dice everything they see around them into neat, digestible bites. People forget that humans are fucking messy. Emotions aren’t simple, like the lines on the ice dividing _us_ versus _them_. Ties always get broken in hockey, there’s a winner and a loser no matter what. But that’s not real life, and when it’s good, everybody wins.

Eddie’s hungover and tired, and he’s not thinking his best here. But it’s obviously past time to come clean, reluctant as Eddie is to get into this with the kid. Paulie gave him the green light to talk about this stuff months ago, but playoffs happened, and Eddie’s a big chicken.

“Paulie’s an alcoholic,” Eddie blurts out finally, then pushes a hand through his hair. “That’s why he doesn’t socialize with the team that much.”

*

It’s a Cup party and that means drinking. It’s kind of a given.

“Where’s Paulie?” Eddie says to Nicki because he’s lost track. It’s late enough that people are really cutting loose, starting to get trashed. He tries not to sound worried, but he made a promise to Jules, way back when they all got tight enough to spill secrets.

Nicki meets his eyes, and nods. “Let’s go find Scott,” she says firmly. They squeeze their way past the backup goalie, who’s trying to set up a ping pong table in their dining room, and go hunting.

They end up cornering Paulie in the TV room, a red Solo cup in his hand.

“Come here, you beauty,” Eddie says, dragging his friend in close enough to smell the cup’s contents.

“Gonz, it’s just seltzer,” Paulie says quietly. He sounds calm, a little resigned, like he deserves the distrust, and Eddie’s chest twists a little. He drapes an arm over his friend’s shoulders and puts him in an affectionate headlock.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and sinks his fingers into Paulie’s hair. “Apology noogie?”

“You're an asshole,” Paulie says, but doesn’t pull away. “There’s no such thing.”

“Hey, Kent,” Nicki says, a hint of unease in her voice, and Eddie looks up to see him approaching. He’s double-fisting two bottles, one tequila, one vodka.

“Shots,” Kent says with manic glee in his voice. He’s flushed, color washing his face, neck and the part of his chest exposed by the unbuttoned top buttons of his shirt.

“Aaand that’s my cue,” Paulie says. “Sorry, Parser, gotta pass. I told Jules I wouldn’t be long. Celebrating with her and the girls.”

“Aw, no way, Paulie. This is for the team,” Kent says. “Don’t wuss out on us here.” He sounds drunk and sullen, a little hurt. He’s gesturing wildly with one hand, until Nicki distracts him by tugging at the bottle he’s waving around.

“Easy, Kent,” she says, pulling the vodka free from Kent’s grasp.

“You mean Stanley Cup Champion Kent Parson,” Kent says easily. His mood has shifted quicksilver fast, a silly grin taking over his face. “’The face of an angel, with the devil’s own wrister.’ Reads his own press and talks about himself in the third person.”

Nicki shakes her head, and her smile’s almost rueful, reluctantly charmed. Eddie tries not to laugh, because he’s in the same boat. Kent can be dangerously appealing when he wants to be.

Later, Paulie still hasn’t left the party, and Eddie can barely hear himself think. Someone’s gotten to the sound system, probably Dags, who everyone swears is half deaf.

Paulie’s gotten his phone out, is showing something to Kent. “It’s a great picture. I’ll send it to you.”

Kent’s nodding, and Eddie would bet he’s already seen whatever Paulie’s showing him, because Kent’s kind of on point with his Instagram skills.

Paulie glances over at him, smiling. “Did you see this one, Gonz?  Abby up on Parse’s shoulders, right after the win? Look, she’s wearing his hat and grabbing his hair like she’s riding a pony. It’s fucking adorable.”

“No, man, that’s awesome,” Eddie manages to say, a little breathless because sometimes it just kicks him in the gut a little.

“You should drop by later this week,” Paulie is saying to Kent. “See the girls. They miss you, kid.”

Kent’s glances from Eddie to Paulie, his eyes unreadable. Something flickers over Kent’s face, there and gone in the lines of his face. “Sure, Paulie,” he says, after a pause, and his voice is quiet when he adds, “Sounds good.”

*

“Alcoholic?” Kent flinches back in his seat a little.

“Yeah, but he's been sober for a long time now. He keeps it real quiet, hates people getting all up in his private business. Management knows, so do the coaches, and PR.  Out of the team, it’s just me, Booker, and the A’s who know. And now you.”

Kent’s finger is tapping on the granite countertop, a frenetic _rat-tat-tat_ , but his face is a tight mask. “Okay. Okay.”

Then the tapping stops, his gaze hardens. “The drinking thing aside, though. You guys are still messing around. Oh, man, _Nicki_ ,” he adds after a beat, his voice almost agonized. For a second he looks like he wants to cry.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Eddie says quickly. He doesn’t think he comes off as defensive. “Nicki—“

“What I’m _thinking_ ,” Kent cuts him off, nearly shouting, “is that everything’s going to crash and burn because of you. That Nicki and Jules are going to get hurt, that it’s going to fuck things up with the team. That’s what I’m thinking.”

The laugh comes out before Eddie can stop it, a humorless bark of a sound. It stings more than he thought it would: Kent’s been the victim of an overly simplistic, sordid narrative. You’d think he’d have learned, be able to see the reality behind the curtain.

Then Eddie mentally shakes himself. Kent’s got his own history with crash and burn stories, and the Zimmermann thing obviously left landmines behind. Off the ice, Kent’s still a teenager in the ways that really count. Eddie forgets that sometimes. It’s not unexpected that the kid immediately leaps to that take on them, most people do. Kent’s worried about family in the end, his hockey family getting hurt, and that’s not a bad thing.

Eddie sighs. “Kent, nobody’s cheating on anyone. Nicki knows,” he says, holding eye contact so Kent knows he’s serious. “Jules knows, we all know. We’ve all got skin in the game.”

Wall Street metaphors, Jesus, Nicki would laugh at him.

Kent blinks. “…Wait, what? They know? They don’t mind?”

“You think Nicki would put up it for a second if she did? She’s into it.” The memory is hot and sudden, making him flush. “Sometimes she likes to watch,” he says, intentionally provocative, because Kent’s reaction has left him feeling kind of raw and he can be a shit sometimes.

A tense silence takes over. Kent’s eyes challenge his, but Eddie’s not the one who looks away first. Kent drops his head down onto the countertop. “Did not need to know that, what the fuck, man,” he says, the words muffled.

He watches Kent carefully, a little worried now. Kent’s not straight, Eddie knows that much, but this is kind of a lot to lay on him. Eddie feels queasy, too exposed and edgy about Kent’s reaction. Is this what it feels like to come out? The hangover isn’t helping, and Eddie doesn’t know anything at this point.

*

Nicki and Paulie clear out of the party finally and then Eddie’s left to hold the fort. With his two favorite people gone, Eddie’s kind of bummed in spite of himself and feeling weird about it. It’s a party, the rest of his team’s here, they’re fucking Stanley Cup Champions: he should be out of his mind happy.

But he isn’t and he doesn’t know why. He thinks back to standing out on the ice right after the win. Like mainlining drugs or something, so happy it hurt, pure ecstasy. He tries to recapture it, to re-live that feeling just for a moment, but it’s gone.

Maybe that kind of high is too intense to last very long, and like any other high, it’s got the comedown afterwards. Without Nicki and Paulie around, he feels kind of cracked open and emptied out, and he really should cut out the needy bullshit for one damn night.

“Gonzo!” JoJo’s suddenly right up in his face, all boozy breath and handsy, and Eddie makes himself smile.

“The man of the hour.” Jojo’s hand snaps out to grab Kent, who’s wandering by them just then, tequila bottle in hand.

“Parser, you beautiful angel of the liquor cabinet, we needs shots,” JoJo says. He reels Kent in close, leaning down to press his mouth to the top of Kent’s head. JoJo’s big and broad and is kind of all over the kid, tucking him under one arm girlfriend-style. JoJo kisses Kent again, his cheek this time, wet and noisy. When JoJo pulls away, Kent looks a little strange, blinking too fast and holding very still under JoJo’s arm.

“JoJo,” Eddie says, ready to tell him to lay off, when his eyes meet Kent’s, and something in the kid’s eyes stops him in his tracks. For just a second, there’s a flash of something in Kent’s gaze, an echo of the hollow feeling that Eddie’s desperately trying to shake. Recognition, desperation, or both, like they both took the fucking red pill and are now regretting it.

It’s enough that Eddie leans in towards them, reaches for the tequila bottle. “Hit me, baby,” he says lightly, and lets himself go.

*

“You okay, kid?” Eddie sounds tense, he can hear it in his own voice.

Kent lifts his head from the countertop. “I’m fine. It’s just…you shifted my worldview here. You and Nicki are sort of my hockey parents.” He grimaces slightly. “Gets a little weird, thinking about it.”

Eddie nods. “I hear you.”

“Jules is really cool with all this?” Kent sounds skeptical, like he can’t imagine it. He only ever sees Jules with the girls, though, so maybe it’s the mom thing. He’s probably got an image of her set in his head. He forgets that that’s just one part of her, forgets that there are depths to everyone.

“Totally cool with it,” Eddie says firmly.

*

That summer they go on vacation together, to a lake cabin near Bancroft. It’s owned by Jules’ family, a sprawling, five-bedroom house that’s a cabin in name only. The location’s a nod to Jules’ parents, who want to meet the grandchildren properly, but it’s private, quiet and scenic, and the beds are really comfortable, so nobody minds.

The twins are fussy and teething, and Eddie is fussy himself. He had his shoulder surgery and is in a sling and it sucks. But there’s the quiet of the lake in the morning, good coffee, good food, and being surrounded by his friends and family, so it’s all good.

The shoulder hurts as much as they said it would, and showers are a pain, and even getting dressed is an exercise in frustration. More importantly, it really cramps his sex life. But it’s fucking hot to just lie back on a stack of pillows while Nicki does things to him, pulls desperate sounds out of him with her mouth and hands.

Sometimes Nicki sits back and watches while Paulie does things to him. He can feel her eyes on them, and it lights him up. He tries to keep his eyes open as long as he can, tries to hold her hot gaze the whole time, but he can’t. His eyes squeeze shut towards the end. That’s somehow even hotter, and with the darkness and the focused attention of his two favorite people in the world, he comes.

They have Paulie’s Cup Day there, with Jules’ parents and extended family. There’s a cookout, and swimming in the lake, and an overly competitive volleyball tournament. It’s a family tradition apparently, where the winners get to sit in the shade and the losers have to shuttle food and drinks to them.

Eddie can’t play because of his stupid shoulder, but he throws in his lot with Paulie’s team, because he’s always into playing with Paulie, whether it’s hockey or volleyball or sex. Eddie and Paulie end up on the losing side, because Jules and half her cousins are fucking _ringers_ who played in college.

Girl power and all that, Nicki picked Jules’ team, and he kind of gets into playing waiter for her. He brings her an ice cold beer with an overdone flourish, and gets a laugh. She’s got Charlotte giggling and bouncing in her lap, and she’s wearing the relaxed, happy smile that always makes him melt a little.

Kent took his mom to vacation in Greece, because she’s always wanted to go there, but he’s back in time for Paulie’s day. He’s looking better, recovered from the playoffs, extra freckled and tanned. He declares himself neutral in the volleyball war, and settles in to eat and drink himself into a stupor. He’s talking about heading to LA to train with someone Bad Bob Zimmermann recommends.

Kent lets Abigail play with his sunglasses, and takes pictures for Instagram and twitter. At one point they stretch out on a blanket in the grass and fall asleep together. Jules gets a picture of them, Abigail sprawled on his chest, drooling. The brim of his Aces hat is pulled down over his eyes, the lines of his body soft with sleep. She posts it to Instagram with the one-word caption, “Shhhh!”

The internet goes crazy with it, and Jules laughs about it clocking the most likes she’s ever gotten.

The Cup heads back to Toronto late in the day, and most of Jules’ extended family leave soon after. The girls get put to bed, and the smaller group that’s left gathers together in the living room. Jules breaks out more beer, and it’s one of those perfect conversations that flows easily, everyone buzzed and happy and full.

Nicki’s on one of the couches, pressed up against Eddie’s side. Paulie takes up the other end of the couch, Jules’ head is in his lap, her feet in Nicki’s.

Kent’s on the couch across from them. Sometimes he leans back and just looks at the four of them, a puzzled frown on his face, like he doesn’t quite get how it works.

Eddie’s not sure himself, frankly. It’s taken them a long time to get here, for Eddie to wrap his head around it and find his happiness. Superstitious athlete that he is, he’s not going to jinx it by trying to explain it. It’s not really Kent’s business, anyway.

There’s one certainty in all this, he thinks. He needs to thank Jules, who set this whole thing in motion. Jules, who was always kind of _meh_ on sex, who gave Paulie the free pass, as long as he was upfront about things. Jules, who talked to Nicki. Jules, who told Paulie to go for it.

And Paulie did, and it works, and sometimes it feels like a high-wire act, but the thrill is worth the danger.

Eddie knows it’s risky, he’s not stupid, but he doesn’t want to stop. He hopes they’ll always have this, though he knows the odds. Hockey means trades happen, people get hurt, people retire, but he wants to keep plugging away at this.

Being together, just having a life together. He thinks they kind of deserve it, after babies and the pining for them, addiction and sobriety, a brutal Cup run, and the pleasures and pressures of winning it. They’ve got twin daughters and a rookie savior hockey son. They’re a weird kind of family, two couples or three, depending on how you count it, but a family nonetheless.

They’ll take it one day at a time.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story features relationships that are flirting with poly. It's pretty tame, in my opinion, but just putting it out there. There are mentions of alcoholism, and an underage character (Kent) is depicted as getting drunk with the team. Casual locker-room level homophobic language.


End file.
